Speaking but not voting rights

A Wairarapa council has approved the appointment of unelected iwi representatives, with voting rights, to its standing committees.

Masterton District Council voted on Wednesday to appoint representatives from Wairarapa’s two iwi, Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and Rangitane o Wairarapa, each with speaking and voting rights, to its policy and finance, and audit and risk, committees.

They also have speaking rights at full council meetings, which ratify the recommendations from the two standing committees.

I think it can be a good thing to have Iwi representatives as non-voting members of appropriate Council committees, or even of the Council. It can be an effective way to make sure they are consulted. I think Iwi do have special interests in certain areas of natural resources.

But I am totally against voting rights. Doing so undermines democracy. You should not have unelected people voting which means a majority vote may only be achieved because of them.

Scott

Stars And Stripes

Take note Andrew Judd, it might be time to move to Masterton and stand for council there as they seem more sympathetic to your Maori agenda than than all the white neo Nazi ratepayers of New Plymouth who have told you where to get off.
Might also be demand for an optometrist shop as a fallback option.

David Garrett

DPF: Can you explain why representatives of the Special People – which is what you obviously believe they are – should get any more rights than you and I? Why exactly do they have “special interests in natural resources”? Surely you don’t still subscribe to the utterly discredited myth that pre European Maori had a wondrous symbiotic relationship with the environment where, without knowing the meaning of the word, they lived entirely “sustainably”?

It is estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 of all the native bush destroyed in NZ was burnt by Maori prior to European arrival. In addition to the huia and God knows how many other species of bird they hunted to extinction, all six species of moa were extinct before Europeans arrived. Sir Tipene O’Reagan said many years ago that “if the Maori had had the bulldozer there would be no bush left.”

In the light of all of that, do please explain why Maori should be entitled to special treatment, and their views be even heard as a separate entity, much less given any weight?

If Maori want to be heard at any level they can stand and get elected like anyone else.

That may depend on the voting system used.

17% of the Masterton District is Maori. Assume that’s maybe 15% of the voting age population (not so easy to find, and could be lower).

Now assume that every single one of the voting age Maori decided on a single person they want to represent them in their ward (Masterton council has two wards, one electing four councillors (the urban ward) and the other five (the at-large ward), and also assume that every single one of those voters convinces two more unique (non-Maori) voters to also support that candidate. That’s 45% of voters supporting a particular councillor, surely that’s enough to get one councillor elected in a single ward with five councillors?

Well, not necessarily. If the other 55% of voters all vote the other way, they’ll get to select not just a majority of the councillors, but literally all of the councillors.

If Masterton used STV, your argument would be a lot stronger. When the voting system on offer isn’t just first-past the post, but block-vote first past the post, then the odds can be stacked against even quite sizeable minorities.

I think its called equality.

Is it? Is a voting system that can make it impossible for 17% of the population to election even one person, representing on 10% of a council “equality”?

Now, 17% of the population in a democratic system, shouldn’t be enough to get a majority, but it will often not be enough to even elect one councillor on a 10-member council, like the Masterton District Council. So your argument may not work: when 17% of the people, all voting with one voice, could not elect 10% of a council, what should they do then if they want “equality”?

Which isn’t to say I support the proposal, but your solution will not work if you have a really unfair voting system.

Jack5

Tarquin North (4.37 post) is right. It’s apartheid, no matter how you dress it up.

Stars and Stripes (4.27) brings up Andrew Judd. From his interview on TV the other night, Judd would brand as racist those who oppose race-based electoral and government systems. The interviewer didn’t probe Judd on how you can be anti-racist and at the same time advocate race-based political and government systems.

Stars and Stripes mentions Judd is an optician. Is he a registered optician or is he the retailer and employs opticians?

Jack5

Graeme Edgeler appears to justify an apartheid voting system in his 4.47 post.

What he wants is a precisely representative system, and that’s impossible. What are you going to define it on: Race? If on race, how will you get precise represenation of tribes and hapu in the case of Maori? What about people of mixed race? Where will you draw the line in racial mixture? What about gender – and if so what genders will you recognise? What about left-handed v. right handed people? Should the obese have precise representation? Should hair colours be equally represented and if so what about the bald? Should short or very tall people have precise representation.

Where are the bleaters who took to the streets to stop an apartheid-system rugby team’s visit now that apartheid is an issue in New Zealand?

Stars And Stripes

Jack 5- both he is a registered optician and has a retail shop, Judd Opticians.
He did this for many years before standing for the majoralty.
I actually think to be honest most people think he is a good guy however the main problem they have with him is that none of the Maori ward stuff he has tried to introduce was mentioned in any of his policies when he stood for the majoralty,it was only after being elected he made it his centre plank policy and it came to dominate his whole tenure.
Real shame because things could have been so different I think.

Kimbo

@ David Garrett

DPF: Can you explain why representatives of the Special People – which is what you obviously believe they are – should get any more rights than you and I? Why exactly do they have “special interests in natural resources”?…

I don’t presume to speak for DPF, but whether one agrees or not, as “consultation” with iwi is legally interpreted as a requirement of the Crown – and presumably also local councils under the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi, then it would seem a wise prophylactic move to co-opt their input before making decisions that may otherwise result in legal actions.

Unless your considered legal advice to councils would be “fuck ’em. Do whatever you want…”

Jack5

What is the need in a democracy like NZ’s for any group to have special “speaking rights” at local bodies?

Anyone can say what they need to say without fear, and the cost of promulgating a point of view is minimal thanks to the internet. It’s free in many other cases. (Well I guess I should qualify what they can say. It can’t be some violence threat, for example.)

Similarly with Kimbo’s point at 5.02. Surely any group, or any individual, can write, email, or talk to any local body without needing special race-based rights?

David Garrett

Kimbo: While your views are fascinating, I would prefer that DPF answered my question…

Oh, and you are dead wrong…the “Treaty” – which is actually no such thing – was an agreement between two supposedly sovereign nations…Local government – indeed CENTRAL government – didn’t exist at the time…which of course is the main reason the “Treaty” is legally what Chief Justice Prendergast called it 1875, “a simple nullity”…successive governments have bestowed upon it some status after the Maori Council case in 1987. Even Cooke CJ acknowledged that it was not an international treaty.

If the problem is the voting system why not just fix the voting system?

Well, 17% of the population isn’t enough to fix the voting system. The voting system for the Masterton District Council is decided by the council, or can be put to a public vote.

The current voting system is one that can allow a majority of the voters (or even a plurality) to election 100% of the councillors. Why should I be certain that either those voters, or those councillors vote that power away from themselves?

Kimbo

@ Jack5

Similarly with Kimbo’s point at 5.02. Surely any group, or any individual, can write, email, or talk to any local body without needing special race-based rights?

No, I think you overlook the occasions when there is an inherent legal need to “consult”. The unravelling of the Auckland Council’s unitary plan because they failed to do so is a case in point. And as before, whether you or I like it or not, the current their currently exists a legalrequirement under the Treaty of Waitangi, for iwi to be consulted. So it arguably makes sense to be proactive in the matter. Is a consequence of a world made by lawyers and accountants…

Oh yes, while there are some similarities, I also do not think there is a direct equivalence with “positive discrimination” of an indigenous minority such as Maori (as unadvised and counter-productive as the practice is), and apartheid. The former seeks to bring a group up to full participation, whereas apartheid was a deliberate policy by an already entrenched power to exclude others. If Pakeha Kiwis think they live in a situation similar to that suffered by blacks (pass laws, group areas acts, second-class public facilities) in Apartheid South Africa, they are deluded.

wiseowl

Very pleased to say you don’t believe they should have voting rights.

Surprised indeed with Graeme.
We are all people .
Councils or parliament should not have privileged places for any race.

DG is right and the more I read about early days in this country the more it is apparent Maori were in no way conservationists and have only jumped on the bandwagon in recent years because of the benefits and pandering recognition they receive.They should actually be thanking our forefathers for their mere existence.

This move by the Wairarapa Council, or any other council, it should not be possible under legislation and National should have knocked this race based representation on the head years ago.
It is an appalling, reprehensible, anti democratic situation .

holysheet

17% of the Masterton District is Maori. Assume that’s maybe 15% of the voting age

And if they all got off their arse and showed some interest they might be surprised at the outcome. Who they vote for might not be for the special peoples candidate. Not all maori vote for only maori candidates.

What he wants is a precisely representative system, and that’s impossible. What are you going to define it on: Race? If on race, how will you get precise represenation of tribes and hapu in the case of Maori? What about people of mixed race? Where will you draw the line in racial mixture? What about gender – and if so what genders will you recognise? What about left-handed v. right handed people? Should the obese have precise representation? Should hair colours be equally represented and if so what about the bald? Should short or very tall people have precise representation.

The advantage of the STV system is that this can be left up to the voters.

If left-handedness is important to the voters, and the 1 in 6 left-handed voters all vote for the left-handed candidates ahead of the non-left-handed candidates, then 1 in 6 of the councillors will be left handed (within the limits of rounding, depending on the number of councillors/wards etc.).

And if everyone with red hair votes for a redhead, and every blond ranks the blonds highly, and every bald person ranks all the bald candidates highly then it all sorts itself out, and the result will have a proportional number of redheads and bald councillors elected.

If Masterton had STV, with large enough seats (the size they’ve got now would be okay, but a single at-large ward would work better), and someone who was Maori stood, but was not elected, then we’d know that, actually, ethnic representation wasn’t the most important factor for enough voters. Maori voters, together with other voters, would be represented, and represented fairly, based on the other factors they considered was important.

But if, for a fair proportion of Maori voters, decided that that was what was important to them, then they get to, just as every else got to decided on what factors informed their votes (just like all the non-Maori voters who have decided to vote for non-Maori councillors, or even for Maori councillors for that matter!)

simo

Mike Hosking got called on this issue in rant by a Iwi activist up north last week. He responded on Seven Sharp the next night and said loud and clear: If you stand for council and the ratepayers elect you – good to go, but northern activist said we don’t have to be elected we are on the council because the TOW states we are entitled under some bullshit clause (my interpretation). If you or me campaigned on a marae and demand to be part of their customs and processes and get to vote on spending their Iwi money – not bloody likely. Is there a precedent for this out there?

Its plain garden variety racism through and through. They have been called on it, the hissing and spitting is under the surface when they get schooled on their own ingrained racism. It goes to show how little they understand their own tinihanga (hypocrisy) on this matter.

With a voting system that didn’t give majorities disproportionate power, you could fairly tell Maori voters pushing for a change like this: actually Maori voters have decided to be represented another way, don’t take this up with us, take it up with the Maori voters who could have elected a Maori voice onto council, but decided not to.

Jack5

Graeme Edgeler’s 5.15 post included:

…The current voting system is one that can allow a majority of the voters (or even a plurality) to election 100% of the councillors…

Sounds to me that you would like something resembling MMP for local councils, Graeme. Isn’t it enough that MMP (or at least its earlier version) fucked up Germany in the 1930s, and in our national political system MMP has given minorities – Maori, Dunne Supporters, ACT supporters – disproportionate political power?

FOOTNOTE: I’ve just read your later post on STV, Graeme, and it sounds better. Though I think I read somewhere STV tends to elect a lot of celebrity airheads. Perhaps the useless mayor of Lima who went AWOL was one. Imagine Hosking as a Cabinet Minister, or John Campbell.

Kimbo

@ David Garrett

Don’t you claim to be a lawyer?

No, but I was aware of the 1875 ruling. But weren’t you aware that since then it has been described by the courts as a “partnership” characterised by “consultation”? And while the Crown is not obligated to honour it…nonetheless it chooses to. Have I summarised the current pragmatic legal and constitutional situation – especially since a certain Minister of Justice persuaded, among others, your good friend Roger Douglas to insert a clause concerning “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” into Crown legislation?

But I note, yet again, you’ve dodged the question I asked. If a local council were your client, would it be good legal advise to instruct them not to bother with proactive consultation with iwi? Not playing “gotcha”. Just interested to know what an experienced politician/lawyer like yourself would advise…

Kimbo

@ Jack5

What’s denying them full participation and making them need this special right, Kimbo?

According to the “experts” – and bear in mind I said I was not in favour of positive discrimination as it actually does more harm than good – the denial is not legal, but social, cultural and economic. Hence the argument – which, yet again I hasten to add I do not necessarily agree with – that special representation or consultation is required.

FW de Klerk argued something similar when negotiating the end of apartheid with the ANC. Basically, he said Westminster democracy developed in an essentially monocultural setting, but when transferred to settings with significant indigenous, ethnic or religious minorities or differences – such as NZ, South Africa, or Ireland, minorities are disenfranchised by the “normalising” of the values and culture of the politically dominant group. That’s what he said, anyway.

I’ve just read your later post on STV, Graeme, and it sounds better. Though I think I read somewhere STV tends to elect a lot of celebrity airheads.

The main problem for STV in New Zealand is that the only thing that most people use it for is electing their District Health Board. It is no suprise that District Health Board elections elect people whom either no-one has heard of, or whom everyone has heard of (eg “celebrities”. DHB elections are stupid and should be abolished.

When you’re electing a council with less than 10,000 votes cast, and maybe 10-15 local candidates you’ve a good chance of actually knowing (your pharmacist, a local accountant or whatever), then STV has a better chance of working properly.

greenjacket

Don’t you guys get it?
The Maaori are a special privileged people, whose innate superior spiritual qualities and kaitiakitanga relationship with the land mean they have superior rights to pakehas. Maaroi cannot cope with oppressive Eurocentric ideas like “voting” and “public accountability”, so they need to have privileges other people can’t have. Te Tiriti guarantees this. Well, OK, not Te Tiriti itself (which said that Maori should have the same rights as British subjects), but a creative interpretation of the principles. You see, some people are created more equal than others.
And anyone who disagrees that Maaori are the special people is a redneck racist.

Longknives

DG- Your on-the-money comments on the Myth of Maori ‘Living at one with Nature’ remind me of their ‘Spiritual’ connection and ‘Guardianship’ with beached Whales.
By Guardianship and Spiritual Connection I mean that as soon as the Wailing, Blessings etc are all over some Maori Guy with a chainsaw and a fag hanging out his mouth arrives and starts carving up the carcass- funnily enough taking all the valuable bits…
The whole thing is a fucking rort.

Ngapuhi leader Sonny Tau has admitted concocting a story with his daughter’s partner about who shot five protected wood pigeons (kereru) in Southland last year.

In June, five frozen kereru wrapped in newspaper were found in Tau’s checked in luggage at Invercargill airport. He initially said he killed them, but later his daughter’s partner, Douglas James Sadlier, said he had shot them and given them to Tau.

After Department of Conservation (Doc) and Police inquiries, both men were charged with perverting the course of justice.

Tau pleaded not guilty, but after a sentencing indication hearing before Judge Mark Callaghan in the Invercargill District Court today changed his plea to guilty.

Tau had already admitted hunting and possessing the kereru.

Judge Callaghan indicated Tau would be fined $12,000 on all charges, ordered to pay $12,500 in costs to Doc, sentenced to three months’ community detention and ordered to undertake 100 hours of community work.

sooty

In my considered opinion Andrew Judd mayor of New Plymouth can not test your eyes, but he can can give you some glasses that an optician has prescribed for you . Also the only elected maori on the New Plymouth council has decided not to stand for relection this year. He only ever turned up to half the meetings, so probably best as he may have got rinsed which would be embarrssing.

David Garrett

Kimbo: Wrong again…in Maori Council v. Attorney General in 1987, Cooke J agreed with Crown submissions that the Treaty did not satisfy the well established requirements for an international treaty, but described the TOT as “our founding document” which “established a relationship IN THE NATURE OF PARTNERSHIP” (sorry about the caps; I don’t know how to write italics on here)

Even if one accepts that a “partnership” can exist between sovereign and subject (and the treaty made Maori British subjects), which is a nonsense, a relationship “in the nature of partnership” is NOT the same as “a partnership”…legally they are quite different.

But you ask a valid question: what would my advice be if I was this Council’s lawyer? That is a hard one to answer, because I would struggle to remain objective, and give advice on the law as it is, and not as I would like it to be. But having canvased the relevant law, my advice would be that they have no LEGAL obligation to appoint some sort of consultative Maori committee, and that whether or not they did so was essentially a political decision. Unless someone knows something I don’t, that is, so far as I am aware, the correct legal position.

What Maori got up to before Europeans turned up and swiped their country is completely irrelevant. What we have is one civilisation claiming cultural supremacy partly as a consequence of possessing a system of legal process that governs how they interact with one another and others. The large scale theft of Maori land and the appalling treatment of Maori generally over the last couple of centuries has made a complete mockery of what the English ‘master race’ referred to as ‘justice’.

As long as Maori continue to suffer – as a consequence of the racially supremacist activity exercised by the dominant race – through over representation in prison population, poverty, poor education outcomes and lower life expectancy statistics, it should be obvious to any person possessing an interest in fairness and common human decency that there is a responsibility to repair that damage.

Allowing hapu and iwi representation in the local body decision making processes is a little thing.

Also, did all those here who complained about unelected Maori appearing at local body level also complain about unelected corporate representatives participating in the secret meetings that developed the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, … or is it different when rich unelected whites get to corrupt the democratic process?

Yoza what part of democracy dont you get ?
The part of one man one vote or the fact we are all equal when it comes to representation?
Apartheid is separate development.
That is what you want you just think it will advantage maori.
All it has given any advantages to so far is the unelected broocracy.

Apartheid = Separate development.
Many years ago someone got hold of a apartheid propaganda leaflet from south Africa and changed the words black to maori.
They sent it around the usual suspects and a surprising number endorsed it including the Anglican church and the Maori woman welfare league.
One man one equal vote is a defining concept in a democracy. Unelected maori with voting privileges in such else wise democratically elected institutes does not serve the interests of either a majority of Maori or the population at large.

greenjacket

milkenmild: “I do object to people trying to characterise this as ‘apartheid’.”
But it is giving an ethnic group a uniquely privileged position purely on the basis of their race. It is giving Maori people two votes (one through democratic election, and one through an iwi) – in effect, it is saying that Maoris are politically twice the value of Pakehas.
That is disgusting.

And that Leftwing people actually support giving a group privileges – not because of their hard work, but because of their birth – I find staggering.

Do you Yoza ?
I would think that the well off having more power within our democracy’s is more of a function of apathy than design.
In the maori world power has nothing to do with ability or wealth.
Power is apportioned on your ancestry .
Aristocracy is such a outdated concept dont you think?
Hence we have a small minority growing their wealth from positions of power within the tribes while the majority see nothing of benefit from the treaty settlement process .

greenjacket

Yoza: “What Maori got up to before Europeans turned up and swiped their country is completely irrelevant.”

It is entirely relevant. Maori life before British colonisation was ghastly – slavery, cannibalism, internecine tribal warfare, wearing flax cloaks for warmth in winter, living in hovels, and the basic diet was small birds and fern root. Yeah – Maori have really suffered under colonisation. Idiot.

Yoza: “As long as Maori continue to suffer – as a consequence of the racially supremacist activity exercised by the dominant race – through over representation in prison population, poverty, poor education outcomes and lower life expectancy statistics, ”

So because some Maori people commit crimes and go to jail, they are victims?
That some Maori are too stupid/lazy at school is the fault of white people?
That some Maori eat too much/smoke to much/drink too much is because someone is making them do that?

holysheet

Interesting. Son is involved in a large subdivision in Papamoa. Recently they dug up two sets of bones. Iwi chappy came and removed them for reburial and archeologists had a look and took some away.
The interesting bit is that the bones were in a layer below and ash layer that was laid done around the 1300’s. Some years before Maori inhabited this bit of town.
Would love to know the carbon dating on the bones.
but they are spirited away.

[Yoza]“..racially supremacist activity exercised by the dominant race – through over representation in prison population..”

Yoza- If they want to stay out of Prison there’s a pretty easy solution for Maori…Have they figured it out yet? Clearly you haven’t..

The prison population tends to reflect the demographic mix of society’s most economically disadvantaged. Maori’s over-representation in prison statistics reproduces their over-representation in the most economically deprived quintile. What you seem to be asking is why can’t poor people stay out of prison?

mikenmild

greenjacket
That’s a very skewed definition of apartheid. Apartheid was a system designed to ensure that a majority of the country’s population was legally subordinated to the minority race. It included restrictions on where people could live and work, removed any right to vote and aimed to ensure that black and coloured people could never challenge the status quo.
Giving Maori guaranteed electoral representation may by unwise, or even unfair, but it is definitely not apartheid.
It is worth noting that the 1986 commission on the electoral system was of the opinion that under a proportional system the Maori seats could be abolished. Their reasoning still makes sense, as a specific Maori Party has emerged and there is no reason to suppose that its appeal could not be broad enough to secure Parliamentary representation without the Maori seats. Having said that, governments since then seem to have adopted the reasoning that the future of the Maori seats can be decided by Maori themselves, with the choice of electoral roll.

mikenmild

V2
Archaeologists discovering human remains under the Taupo ash layer would be shouting it from the rooftops as an exciting discovery. Remember how excited everyone got about the rate DNA results a few years ago?

davidp

I don’t see the issue with this. In the UK, the crown decided that lords were entitled to special representation based on the Magna Carta and the fact that some people are born lords and everyone else are born peasants. Lords didn’t want to have to stand for election since that is just undignified. The solution was obvious: Guaranteed representation via an unelected undemocratic House of Lords.

So the Wairarapa now has a House of Lords. Those of you who are peasants should just learn your place in life. If you didn’t want to be a peasant then you should have picked your parents a bit better.

But that’s a very skewed definition of apartheid. Apartheid was a system designed to ensure that a majority of the country’s population was legally subordinated to the minority race

What part of having to submit to iwi veto rights on development for land freely sold over two hundred years ago dont you get MM.
Or the fact that you must submit research proposals to a maori council to get them cleared at university’s.
That you must pass a cultural component controlled by maori when doing a health or education degree.
There are many other examples of Maoris growing power over the majority .

[Yoza:] “What Maori got up to before Europeans turned up and swiped their country is completely irrelevant.”

It is entirely relevant. Maori life before British colonisation was ghastly – slavery, cannibalism, internecine tribal warfare, wearing flax cloaks for warmth in winter, living in hovels, and the basic diet was small birds and fern root. Yeah – Maori have really suffered under colonisation. Idiot.

Pre European colonisation the Maori population was from 100,000 – 200,000, by 1896 it was 42,000. Hardly an indictment of the benefits of white supremacy over the race being subjected. Furthermore, although life could be brutal for Maori living in pre-European times, their European contemporaries were busy killing, looting, enslaving and generally terrorizing the planet on a scale that Maori would be incapable of comprehending – beside European civilisation, Maori were comparatively benign.

howitis

Stars And Stripes (814 comments) says:
May 9th, 2016 at 5:00 pm
Jack 5- both he is a registered optician and has a retail shop, Judd Opticians.
He did this for many years before standing for the mayoralty.
I actually think to be honest most people think he is a good guy……………………
—–
Simple really
Judd is a racist now even if he was not before.
He wants people to get special privilege based on their racial origins.

So yes where is Minto and Trev Richards? They doth protest too little!

G Edgeler: I’m not sure if Masterton has STV but I am sure the have plenty of STDs especially if they attended Makora College.

Quite frankly the proposal of ‘absolute selection by Edgeler is not a voting system, it is a ‘fit up’.
The LG system was better before Geoff Palmer’s time where Councillors were not paid but had succeeded in business so the people you got were ‘above average’.
They treated is as a business interest and were efficient with the use of their time.
This way you keep out crazies like Cathy Casey now in Auckland who was previously terrorising Wairarapa as a councillor on the South Wairarapa council. Still, there is not much else she can do with a degree in sociology Ask Sir Bob Jones.

Stick with votes only for land owners as well.

Wairarapa could do with amalgamation. eg Carterton has only 7000 citizens and is a few minutes drive to Masterton. I am opposed to amalgamating greater Wellington but an alignment of small councils with multiple bureaucracies in the Wairarapa makes sense. When they were formed in the 1800s farming era there were no well sealed roads with the short travel times there are today.
This would be of more value to debate.

Jack5

Re Yoza at 7.41:

Pre European colonisation the Maori population was from 100,000 – 200,000, by 1896 it was 42,000. Hardly an indictment of the benefits of white supremacy over the race being subjected.

The Maori population plunged before the Treaty of Waitangi and colonisation. Maori enthusiasm for muskets from about 1800, and the arrival of diseases to which the isolated population naturally had little immunity, more than double-decimated the population.

An idea of the high death rate can be gained from the Taranaki Maori pre-Treaty invasion of the Chatham Islands at the resultant genocide, which was particularly brutal, with the rest of the population being enslaved.

Blazeofbullshit at 8.15 arrives to join the melee then tries to assert moral supremacy to others in the affray. Sorry, your halo is rusted through, Blaze.

Jack5

None of that, even as exaggerated, constitutes apartheid, Griff. No one is suppressing the majority population ion New Zealand.

The Leftists have been re-defining “apartheid” for some time to suit their views, however apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning “separateness”, or “the state of being apart”, literally “apart -hood”.

Here’s the Oxford Dictionaries background:

Adopted as a slogan in the 1948 election by the successful Afrikaner National Party, apartheid extended and institutionalized existing racial segregation. Despite rioting and terrorism at home and isolation abroad from the 1960s onwards, the white regime maintained the apartheid system with only minor relaxation until February 1991

Oxford adds that “apartheid” has also come to mean “segregation on grounds other than race” and gives as an example
“sexual apartheid”, which I presume means discrimination against women (or men, or those between).

Quite frankly the proposal of ‘absolute selection by Edgeler is not a voting system, it is a ‘fit up’.
The LG system was better before Geoff Palmer’s time where Councillors were not paid but had succeeded in business so the people you got were ‘above average’.
They treated is as a business interest and were efficient with the use of their time.
This way you keep out crazies like Cathy Casey now in Auckland who was previously terrorising Wairarapa as a councillor on the South Wairarapa council. Still, there is not much else she can do with a degree in sociology Ask Sir Bob Jones.

None of the arguments I have put forward in favour of STV in this thread are incompatible with your support for un-paid or part-time councillors, or with smaller councils (which would favour this).

I quite like the idea of councils with councillors on them who have to hold other work as well to get by. Could extend that to MPs too.

Steve Todd

For the first time since last year sometime, I have to disagree with you, mikenmild. (For the record, I didn’t express that disagreement publicly.)

Graeme Edgeler has clearly set out the problem, and has put forward the best solution possible – 10 seats elected at-large under STV, just like Palmerston North City (15 seats at-large) and now Dunedin City (14 seats at-large). I would be most interested to hear what system you think would be better than that.

In a lead letter to the Editor of the Dominion Post in March last year (published as the lead letter), I pointed out that STV at-large was the solution for New Plymouth. And yet here we are, more than a year letter, and Mayor Andrew Judd is still lamenting the fact that there will not be a separate Maori seat on the NPDC. Is he actively trying to convince his council to adopt STV for 2019? Not in the slightest, I’ll bet.

He knows the answer. But what happened on 7 Sharp tonight? He and Mike Hosking were talking about MMP!! Not a single mention of the only solution to the shocking lack of Maori representation on local councils – STV at-large. Talk about wilfully ignoring the solution that was literally staring them in the face, and which Judd, at least, knew about.

If a 10-seat council is elected at-large by STV, any group of voters – blonds / blondes, redheads, bald-headed geezers, business types, greenies, Maori, pakeha, whatever – who comprise 9% of those who vote, can elect a candidate who, in their collective opinion, best represents their interests. Nothing could prevent that from happening. Everyone properly represented; everyone happy.

And if a Maori candidate was not elected in Masterton (or New Plymouth), then, as Graeme Edgeler points out-

“If Masterton had STV, with large enough seats (the size they’ve got now would be okay, but a single at-large ward would work better), and someone who was Maori stood, but was not elected, then we’d know that, actually, ethnic representation wasn’t the most important factor for enough voters. Maori voters, together with other voters, would be represented, and represented fairly, based on the other factors they considered was important.” Exactly!!

And: “With a voting system that didn’t give majorities disproportionate power, you could fairly tell Maori voters pushing for a change like this: actually Maori voters have decided to be represented another way, don’t take this up with us, take it up with the Maori voters who could have elected a Maori voice onto council, but decided not to.” Perfectly expressed.

With Maori-roll voters corralled into a single-seat FPP Maori ward, the encumbent councillor would soon be re-elected repeatedly (a situation known as electoral stasis), or unopposed, time after time, as happens in respect of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, thereby effectively disenfranchising Maori-roll voters. The obvious answer is multi-seat STV.

Through plain, wilfull ignorance, Mike Hosking and Andrew Judd badly let down all of us tonight, Maori in particular.

wellygirl

“You should not have unelected people voting which means a majority vote may only be achieved because of them.”

Interesting you saying that DPF, this is one of the arguments of the Brexit campaign in the UK – unelected EU officials making/voting on decisions that affect Britain. Many in the Brexit campaign see it not only as undermining their democracy, but also their sovereignty.

Steve Todd

Okay, Jack5, I’m going to make a confession.

I find mikenmild to be very knowledgeable on a wide a range of subjects, and I find that I (at least largely) agree with him almost all of the time (probably because we share a particular point of view of life). But most of all, I find him hugely entertaining; I like the way he has great fun at the expense of so many people who blog here.

This site needs mikenmild, to provide what DPF mentions quite regularly – balance.

Pre European colonisation the Maori population was from 100,000 – 200,000, by 1896 it was 42,000. Hardly an indictment of the benefits of white supremacy over the race being subjected.

The Maori population plunged before the Treaty of Waitangi and colonisation. Maori enthusiasm for muskets from about 1800, and the arrival of diseases to which the isolated population naturally had little immunity, more than double-decimated the population.

An idea of the high death rate can be gained from the Taranaki Maori pre-Treaty invasion of the Chatham Islands at the resultant genocide, which was particularly brutal, with the rest of the population being enslaved.

Although disease and internecine warfare played a role in decimating the population, you conveniently omit the vicious aggression of the British administration which saw a decades long campaign forcing 10s of thousands of Maori into a struggle for survival on the margins of the lands they were accustomed to occupying. The death tool from disease and hunger as a consequence of being pushed off their traditional farms and hunting grounds would have been far greater than the toll from the original contact and the internecine conflict.

The attack on the Chatham Islands and the death toll exacted on South Island Maori was extremely brutal, yet these mass killings were insignificant when compared to the level of slaughter to which Europeans regularly subjected those whom they were intent on displacing or subjugating, Australia being a particularly brutal example of the contempt in which the British held the indigenous people.

Europeans had spent centuries honing the art of mass killing before they reached the Southern Hemisphere. The only thing that saved the Maori from the genocidal mania inflicted on the Australian aboriginals was the ability of Maori to defend themselves with a level of ferocity and sophistication with which the British were unaccustomed – one British killed for one Maori killed was, for the Brits, an intolerable level of attrition.

waikatosinger

Maori access to bodies involved in decision making processes is about redressing those past crimes which have reduced them to the margins in a country that was once theirs. It is not ‘democratic’ to ethnically cleanse the country of its indigenous population, to the point where that population is reduced to a tenth of the white population, and then say, “OK! Now we can have one vote per person!”

There is no point where the invasion of New Zealand by Europeans became an acceptable state of affairs, it is an ongoing conflict that will not resolved until Pakeha New Zealand accepts its role in the destruction of the Maori people. Mandatory representation for Maori on representative bodies will go some small way to recognising and addressing past crimes while attending to contemporary issues.

Jack5

Yoza’s 11.06 post included:

The only thing that saved the Maori from the genocidal mania inflicted on the Australian aboriginals was the ability of Maori to defend themselves with a level of ferocity and sophistication with which the British were unaccustomed – one British killed for one Maori killed was, for the Brits, an intolerable level of attrition.

Have you have been brainwashed by revisionist historians relying on oral “history”, Yoza?

Britain at first was reluctant to colonise New Zealand. Driving the expansion of the empire to NZ were missionaries and the authorities in New South Wales who were concerned and perhaps fearful because of the lawlessness and chaos in New Zealand. Gun runners and rum runners were arming the warring tribes and wild whalers and sealers were treating it like a pirate bolt hole. Once the British did start staking the place out, of course, they raced to keep their old enemy, France, from colonising the South Island.

Maori tribes fought on the side of the British against other tribes, but the total warfare in NZ was down almost on a skirmishing scale compared with the Napoleonic fighting the British endured in Spain, Portugal, and France. NZ was a series of more low-scale colonial wars. Do you know of an instance where the British slaughtered as many Maori as the Taranaki Maori did in their pre-Treaty invasion of the Chathams?

There was always going to be pain when Maori, isolated in these islands for centuries, met an outside invader. Probably they were lucky that it was the British rather than the Spaniards (compared their outcome with that of the Easter Islanders) or an Asian power.

Jack5

This affair has got more serious. Maori have lodged complaints against TV1’s Mike Hosking because he aired rather mild views about the Taranaki politician who supports segregated governance on local bodies.

First you divide the political power on a race basis, then you try to shut down any criticism of this apartheid-type governance.

To give some background on Andrew Judd, the New Plymouth District Council Mayor, there’s this from the council web site:

Andrew was born in Masterton in 1965, the second eldest of six children.

He was educated at the town’s Makoura College and went on to employment in retail and marketing before training as a dispensing optician. Andrew’s first job was in a clothing factory where he trained to become a qualified cloth cutter.

Judd’s description of himself as a “reformed racist” is offensive and 180-degrees wrong. It implies anyone who disagrees with Judd on race-based local body electoral systems is a racist. Yet he doubtlessly thinks the apartheid-era Afrikaners were racists. Who are the racists on this issue?

It’s interesting that Judd has been supported on the Maori quota issue by the 2 per cent Maori Party’s Flavell. The Flavell position seems to be that equal representation on a local body means half Maori and half non-Maori, regardless of the make-up of the voters. What Flavell thus means is that one Maori vote should be more valuable than one non-Maori vote. Surely that’s apartheid representation.

mikenmild

DG
The Musket Wars seem to get quite a few mentions here, as if they are some proof of degeneracy. Some even try to claim that the British colonisation saved Maori from self destruction.
People often seem to forget the ‘Musket’ in the Musket Wars. These inter-tribal wars were an inevitable result of pre-colonial contact and the superior access to firearms for some tribes which ensured. Traditional fighting, which had been limited in duration, location and scale, was transformed by the supply of European weaponry. Tribes with muskets could convert to an almost full-time war economy, and take slaves to perform the agricultural work which had previously limited fighting seasons.
By the time the British arrived to negotiate a treaty, a new balance of power had emerged. Well-armed tribes were thereafter able to successfully compete in warfare with the British and colonial forces, leading to several spectacular reverses for the latter.
Sorry for getting all ‘revisionist’.

Democracy.
What part dont you guys get?
What part of ignoring democratic processes is going to lead to a better world ?
We have mmp there are also other systems of democratic elections that could rightfully be applied to councils to get more democratic outcomes to minority groups.
but unelected representation on grounds of race is not democracy it is an apartheid (separate development) concept and is racist.

David Garrett

Milky: Everything you have said about the musket wars is correct…and so what? European contact had changed Maori society, arguably very much for the worse…and?

One point though: If you DON’T know that many of the chiefs signed the treaty – at least in part – because they wanted British law to end the endless conflict, you haven’t read much history.

tricky: You are even worse! There were no “indigenous” people in New Zealand … Maori arrived about 1200 at the earliest, and Europeans 500 years later..As the late great David Lange – who I would imagine you revere – once said: “Everyone in New Zealand is an immigrant”

Aside from the Moriori of course, and we don’t mention them, do we. Even at the best schools. By the way, you enjoy mocking me for my educational qualifications (conveniently forgetting the BA in pols and history) What are yours? You seem to think you know a lot…A BA in sociology from Waikato?

mikenmild

DG
The Musket Wars were over by the time of the treaty. Fighting finished in the North Island in the early 1830s and in the South Island a few years later, as a new balance of power emerged. So the treaty did NOT end the Musket Wars.
These wars often get brought up as some kind of justification for colonisation. The impetus for colonisation stemmed more from a desire to exert control over the European population and establish some kind of legitimate British authority in the region. Initially, the exercise of British control was very limited and expanded only quite slowly as the number of colonists grew and European authority could start to be exerted in more than a nominal sense.
Misreading of early New Zealand history, and the process of war and colonisation continues to have consequences today, as people tend to take very different perspective on history depending upon their contemporary political concerns.

You seem to be making a couple of errors in your reply to itstricky, too. Maori people are indigenous, or ‘aboriginal’ if your prefer. They were the first human inhabitants of New Zealand.
And, of course, everyone educated knows about the Moriori.

David Garrett

Milky: Again, mostly right…the musket wars had indeed largely petered out by 1840, largely because up to 40% of the Maori population had been killed in them!

But there was still ongoing armed conflict between tribes…which was partly why they were so successful in taking on the British 20 years later…they had had a lot of practice!

No, Milky, Maori weren’t indigenous in the correct sense of that word…the Australian aborigines, who have been there 40,000 years were…the American Indians were…Maori were simply the first immigrants.

And “everyone educated” does NOT know about the Moriori…the convenient fiction most younger people believe – to disguise the fact of the genocide which befell them – is that they were just another Maori tribe, and what happened to them was just the way it was. Again, it was David Lange who officially declared them to have been a separate and distinct race.

Dazzaman

mikenmild

DG
I didn’t say that there was no more conflict between tribes. Indeed the settler government would have been unable to campaign without the kupapa support. All I said was that the Musket Wars were over by 1840 and were not the reason for the British intervention.

Moriori are not a separate and distinct race – that is an old, old myth. The myth, which is still often encountered, holds that the Moriori were the Chatham Islands remnant of the ‘original’ occupiers of New Zealand. before the Maori. This myth provides obvious justification for the subsequent dispossession of Maori by Europeans.

MickMac

No Group should have better rights than any other.
This is a democracy, like anyone else they can attend meeting and make submissions.
No this is Maori apartheid and it’s worst when they get voting rights as well, which they haven’t been elected to get by the voters.